The official motto of Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 visit to the United States, the first of his papacy, is "Christ our Hope." Based on the frequency with which papal spokespersons have struck a different note, however, its unofficial motto might well be, "This is not a political event."FULL STORY

One dollar. It's the cost of a New York Times, less than half a cup of coffee at Starbucks. These days it's a paltry sum. Even less when you consider that right now, a billion people are struggling to survive on less than one dollar a day. This is what defines "extreme poverty."FULL STORY

Conservative critics have been lighting up the airwaves and blogs for the last 48 hours after Sen. Barack Obama's speech to the Hampton University Annual Ministers' Conference raised the combustible topic of the burning anger among the nation's poor African-Americans.FULL STORY